Almost 25 years ago, the world’s attention was rapt on three gray whales stranded by encroaching sea ice off the coast of Alaska and the effort to free them.

Dave Withrow, a marine mammal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was called in to help with the rescue, which had to contend with frigid temperatures, persistently freezing ice and coordinating a wide range of groups that wanted to help with the effort.

Five meters of ice– about 16 feet thick – is threatening the survival of polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea region along Alaska’s Arctic coast, according to Dr. Susan J. Crockford, an evolutionary biologist in British Columbia who has studied polar bears for most of her 35-year career.
That’s because the thick ice ridges could prevent ringed seals, the bears’ major prey, from creating breathing holes they need to survive in the frigid waters, Crockford told CNSNews.com.